Most religions believe in the premise of heaven and hell where only spiritual beings may exist and it is said that humans are an amalgamation of spirit and flesh.

Our spirits are supposedly the variants of a Supreme Being whom we commonly refer to as “God” and when our physical bodies expires after many years of living this mortal life, our spirit returns to the source – God. Over the years religions and beliefs evolved from the polytheistic aristocracy into the oneness of monotheistic views, but with hundreds of different beliefs. Which one fits closest to truth or logic?

The answer may lie further than what we fundamentally accept and it could be far stranger that we’ve ever imagined it would be. Today I would like to share my views or theory on the subject of life, death, our spirit and what I would like to describe as the “Ether.”

Ether

Among the many documented cases of near death experiences (NDE) nearly everyone’s account are strangely identical to each other, no matter the distance of these events and when they occur. Their race, creed, color, religious beliefs, gender and age are also of no consequence because everyone speaks of darkness, and then an out of body experience (i.e. spiritual separation of the soul from the body). After a brief moment the corridor of light appears and the eventual arrival to a resplendent place at the end of the tunnel (corridor of light). Some speak of meeting with old relatives who had previously died as far back as 70 – 100 years ago, others say that they encounter some spiritual beings that at times take human form and in another becomes like a being of pure energy. There were rarely any accounts of Jesus, Buddha, prophets, angels or even the religious depiction of “God.” If anything, God was described as the light that illuminates that place where the dead go, but that sentient being never claimed that he was anybody’s god or made any religious references of any kind-even to the most faithful of believers. In my opinion that place could be the “Ether” where the life-force of our spirits conglomerate from before we were born to the time when we’ve arrived here and back. The Ether may have already synergistically co-exist with our physical planet before we even knew about it, but at a different plane of reality and if our spirits can cross from that plane of existence and possess our bodies that would allow us to live 100 years at best, then the reverse might just be possible.

Life, Death and Reincarnation

It would seem that our inauguration into this life is not by our choice nor is it by our parent’s choice, but it appears to be more like a random selection. Humans do not predetermine to choose their mates nor does reproduction and genetic formation that ultimately results in a fetus and yet we have Einsteins, Teslas, Edisons, Mozarts and so many other diverse personalities that helped shaped our society into what it is now. I believe that there are two kinds of spiritual beings, one who has less control of his destiny that bonds with human flesh and dies after a century more or less and another who can cross over spiritual and physical boundaries at will. We referred to the latter as angels, demons and gods and just like us, some of them are benevolent while others are purely evil. They can also choose to remain in spirit form or possess a host (human) in order to manifest themselves to us, but clearly they are the bosses in the spirit realm. If our spirits therefore could transcend from the Ether to our world and vice versa, then reincarnation might be possible as well.

Stories

You may have hear them for yourself or have experience them directly, but just to let you know I do no claim that any of them to be factual or true. However, the circumstance of the stories themselves and the physical residue that they come into contact with and how a witness describes the events is absolutely thought provoking. There was a story about a woman who had died for a few minutes while having a brain surgery and her eyes and ears were covered with cotton buds and sanitary cloth. However, she described the materials the surgeons used to open her skull and remove her tumor in perfect detail and what’s most puzzling of all is that she never saw those things before, during and after the operation, even the doctors were stunned to hear her story. She also mentioned being in a very beautiful placewhere the light seems to come from everywhere and saw her dead relatives there as well as people whom she never met, but felt a connection with them. She then asked one of her relatives if “God was the light” and her relative answered that “the light happens when God breathes.”

Another story tells of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) that was popularized by the movie “White Noise” experts believe that they are static electrical pulses that are misinterpreted as (dead) human voices. But again if this was the only accepted explanation then how is it that these voices knew intimate details about their relatives who communicate with them through the same medium. There are also ghost stories that were described as moving really heavy objects that would normally take about 10 – 20 people to lift and move while others are so extreme that they would cause harm to human beings and some even got killed.

There was a story about several groups of Malaysian teenagers who would love to venture out in Mother Nature’s exotic spots and would go there to picnic. The local farmer who lives near that forest would often notice that each time these young thrill seekers would visit and bathe in the waterfall at least one of them would get sick and mysteriously die after a few hours with no medical explanations why. Then a local charismatic Christian church decided to visit the place and to pray over it and they were shocked to see the kind of non-human beings that lived there. The pastors realized that they were dealing with something beyond what their prayers can do and so they left luckily unharmed and ever since that time they would advice people not to venture in that part of the forest because the beings claimed that if humans would trespass their domain, they will demand a human life as a sacrifice.

Conclusion

Who are these ultra-terrestrial beings who seem to co-exist with us who are often more or less malevolent towards us? What do they want from us? Why do they always conceal their presence from us and choose only to reveal themselves to a few whom we consider as having mental issues that make up fairy tale stories about them? If we truly believe in the cardinal rule of the scientific method we would approach these matters with a rational mind and spend time and effort in investigating them with a clear aim to find out the truth about these things. Sadly we will still have to wait for that day to come.

When it comes to odd ways of people dying, spontaneous human combustion comes close to the top of that list.

Many people each year fall victim to one of the most mysterious of occurrences on planet Earth. The occurrence of spontaneous human combustion is extremely rare and dangerous, it always leaves the victim dead within seconds.

One of the victims were Young Sik Kim of Hawaii, he had fallen victim to spontaneous human combustion on December 1956.

Kim had lived in Honolulu, Hawaii for the 78 years of the life that he had lived. Kim was a crippled from the waist down for most of his life. Young Sik Kim had was left with the limited mobility of a wheel chair to move from place to place.

The most odd thing happened to Young Sik Kim on December 1956, he became victim to what many fear, spontaneous human combustion. Flames had burst out from his stomach, burning it’s way in every single direction possible leaving all skin, bones, and organs in ash. When Virginia Caget, Young Sik Kim’s neighbor, arrived to see what the commotion was Virginia claimed that Kim body was burning with blue flames and he been be, nt in like an envelope. Virginia Cadet ran to call for help, she called the Fire Department for help. The heat was too hot for her to go back into the room, so she waited outside until the firemen came.

15 minutes had gone by and Kim was still burning., Soon after the firemen came to see a pair of feet covered in a pile of ashes. Young Sik Kim had been burnt to ashes leaving behind only his feet. Even the wheelchair that Kim had been seated on were burn to ashes as well. What makes this case mysterious is that no other part of the room had, any singe or burnt marks. The firemen claimed that there were clothes and books everywhere which are both extremely flammable.

Spontaneous Human Combustion is very mysterious and is one of the scariest things that can happen to us humans. The scary thing is that we do not know how or why spontaneous human combustion works. We can fall victim to it at time, unaware.

On March 1, 1953 Waymon Woods of South Carolina was found dead. He died by Spontaneous Human Combustion. His case has mystified many, no one knows how it happened or why it happened. Let’s take a look at this odd death of Waymon Woods.

Spontaneous Human Combustion is one of the many things on Earth that we can not explain. Men, Women, and Children have combusted into flames leaving them dead within a few seconds. There are specific targets when it comes this tragic occurrence, it seems that the victims are always picked randomly.

On March 1, 1953 Waymon Woods burst into flames in his car. His car was found on Bypass Route 291, and inside the car was his body, crisped black, sitting in the front seat. Every single part of his body had been burnt to ashes, even his bones were sent to ashes. For human bones to even be burnt to ashes it would have to have a heat temperature of over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The strange thing about this death was that everything except for the windshield was affected by the heat. The heat had been contained to his stomach, leading it’s way like a long fuse that is going in ten different directions. What a fuse does when it is set on fire, is that it burns it’s way to where the end of the fuse is located, just like a fuse Waymon’s body was burnt from every direction leading it’s way to the end where it stopped burning.

For the Occult World, Spontaneous Human Combustion is the result of a ghost or spirit that has caused you to burn into flames. It would seem right to pinpoint this occurrence on some supernatural entity as we ourselves can not explain ghosts and spirits. Could science come to the same conclusion that human combustion is a result of supernatural force or could it be something simple like a imbalance in the body.

Another ghost story that came out after the flood in December 17, 2011 in Iligan City, Philippines a month after the flood where once lively and crowded communities turned into ghost towns, houses were destroyed, large trunks of driftwood in the roads, cars on the side of the road, and various things that are scattered everywhere, toys, clothes, unpaired shoe, and in some instances bodies under the thick mud.

In Iligan city the main method of transportation are “jeepnies” – modified jeeps. One morning a month after the flood the evacuation centres are still crowded and only a few people went back to their places and built a new house, a jeepney driver crossed a highway by the destroyed houses of the flooded area.

It was 3 in the afternoon and the place looks very desolate, he is hoping to get some passengers on the other side of the highway, but then to his surprise a couple of people was waving at the side of the road, he estimated about a group of 10 or more people was waiting for a jeepney, so he stopped by and the people went inside the jeep. He noticed that their feet were very muddy and almost all of them were not wearing any shoes or slippers, their shirt has stains of mud and their hands as well.

He thought that they were scavenging or looting for some stuff that others already abandoned. And other could also be building another house on top of the mud that covered their old house. The sight didn’t matter much to him as it was very common on those days to see people covered with mud especially on those areas.

At the rear view mirror in the jeep he can see a familiar face of a girl about 6 to 8 years old. The people in the jeep were very silent, not like a normal group of people were some will be chatting or talking about the relief goods or how to start again, but that group was peculiarly silent. Ahead he can already see the end of the bridge from where he was expecting more passengers and indeed he saw a lot of people waiting.

Just as he crossed the edge of the bridge which was also the border of that small community destroyed by the flood, he looked at the rear view mirror again to check if the space and if how many people can still occupy the seats. To his surprise no one was at the back. He was very sure that he didn’t drop any passengers off. He was very scared at the moment that he was shocked, his passengers were wondering why the driver looked so shocked and scared, but he didn’t told them because he might lose passengers again.

That night he visited a funeral home to give condolences to the family of a friend. At the entrance to the funeral home there’s a large billboard full of pictures of the missing people with the contact number of their family. Scanning along the pictures he was horrified again to find the picture of that child he saw earlier that day riding his jeep. He could not be wrong because he can vividly remember the girl’s face from his mirror.

That driver’s story was just one of the many ghost encounters on that area.

My grandmother’s home is in a place quite far from civilization, on a solitary hill with few inhabitants but mostly full of shrubs and rocks. But if that isn’t scary enough, there is this one old, deserted and solitary house next to her hut, a few steps away. You see, such houses were common in African villages but this one was different. Its tattered walls, broken glasses and its unkempt garden was all proof that something was wrong with that homestead.

“Never ever go near that cursed place!” my grandmother would warn us. According to her, a newly wedded couple had decided to construct a new home and they did so without the blessings of the elders. So the day they moved in, they noticed that there was a strange feeling or atmosphere inside the house. They ignored it till strange things started happening to them. Apparently, one of the elders had cursed the house because proper rituals were not performed. During the night, the wife complained that she was being strangled by strange people and the husband had very horrific nightmares. They sought the help of the local church but to no avail. The elders came up with a solution, that the place be burnt down to ashes using special wood and ointments as the curse could not be recalled nor changed.

The husband was too stubborn to listen to neither the advice of the elders nor the pleas of his wife. One day, the wife got tired and left him. After a week, he was found dead, with strange markings carved on the wall of the living room. That was two decades ago, and since then, attempts for prayers to be done and the home reclaimed from the curse proved futile, especially when the brethren experienced strange things when they visited the place. Body aches, strange gut feelings and fatigue were common short-term ailments associated with visiting the place.

So one day, my three cousins and I decided to sneak into the compound to disclaim the rumors. Right after lunch, we walked through the rocky, shrubby path, the strange breeze and the overgrown thicket. Our first sight was of the main door opening and closing by itself. “It must be the wind,” I said, noticing reluctance from two of them. They stopped and stared as I walked on. Before I could even enter the house, a colony of bats flew out and passed by me, making me a little horrified. I saw the writings on the wall and my attempts to read them were disrupted by a partial blindness. Suddenly, I heard a loud scream from inside and I felt weak, then I sat down. I could hardly breathe when my cousins rushed and carried me back to my grandmother’s house. The local pastor was quickly called and after a lengthy prayer, I was pronounced healed.

I said never again, would I approach that haunted place or any other. I was lucky to be saved.

Philippines’ culture is very rich when it comes to mythology and folklore. Majority of the population are superstitious even to this day where video games and the internet has become a household necessity next to electricity and water. One of the more fascinating aspects of Philippine mythology is its version of witchcraft or sorcery called kulam.

Kulam traces its roots from Haiti and is pretty much similar to that of voodoo which is characterized by the use of dolls or by formulating potions to cast magic spells. There have been several reported cases of kulam through the years especially along the provinces. There has also been a popular belief that Siquijor, an island located at the southern part of the Philippines, is the center of witchcraft particularly those who practice kulam but this has been denied by local officials claiming that these are all just pure superstition.

Kulam is supposedly used, more often than not, to inflict pain and suffering to a person who has wronged someone in a certain way. The person who was violated supposedly goes to a mangkukulam – the term used to refer to a person who practices kulam – and brings an item or a strand of hair that belongs to the person who wronged him or her which the mangkukulam uses to cast a spells on. The person usually gets sick through high fever and constant vomiting or in worst instances, they die. These symptoms are allegedly incurable through medical means. The only way to counter the spell is to seek the help of another mangkukulam or through quack doctors called herbularyo or albularyo in Filipino terms.

But if you think kulam is the worst that could happen to you, think again. There’s a far more potent and evil form of kulam called barang. Barang is similar to kulam in more ways than one. The only difference is that barang uses insects like cockroaches, spiders, or flies to inflict pain to a person. What the barang does is put these insects inside of a person’s body through evil spells. The victims of barang do not only get sick through high fever and vomiting. The insects mentioned above allegedly come out of their ears, nose, and anus or through wounds that began as swellings until it explodes and the insects come out.

So try to be nice to people around you. You’ll never know, that person may just know a mangkukulam or mambabarang to get back at you.

I have a sister who’s a nurse like me… She worked as a volunteer nurse for a sector of the government that caters to children, infant and sometimes newborns who are abandoned or are orphan. They give shelter, food and education to these children.

I remember the story she told me years ago…

“There are a lot of ghost stories here in the shelter the most popular one is the lady in black… Many volunteers have seen her already she always passes by the children’s room and for most of the time that she’s seen the following day some babies get sick or more often than not, there will be a child from the sick ward who would die.”

“At first I thought those instances were just coincidences and that they just mistakenly see shadows as a woman in black… it all changed when you get to see her up-close…”

“I was on my way to the laundry area, to get new blankets for my babies, the hall way was quite dim because it’s already late… pin lights along the hallway were the only lights open, it was the time when I saw a woman in a very long black dress well its’ more like a cloak she has a veil on and she was just facing the nursery staring at the children, I was about 2 meters away from her when she turned her head and looked at my direction, I ran… I ran so fast that I dropped the soiled blankets I was holding…Until now I can’t forget the way she looked at me, it is an image on my head that I’d like to erase forever

It was a cold day in central Minnesota, as December days can be, but the weather was relatively mild compared to what it could have been. The wind blew, but didn’t howl, and a few flurries of snow and some freezing rain had made its way down from the sky. Either way, Minnesota winters can be less than pleasant and DeeDee considered her self lucky that she found herself in sunny New Orleans on business for a few days.

After an exhausting day, she decided to go back to her hotel and take a late afternoon nap. Back in blustery Minnesota, Sandra, an elementary school teacher, had left earlier than usual. The school she taught at was in a small farm town about a half and hour from where she lived in the City of St. Cloud. She usually carpooled with a couple other teachers who made the same trip back and forth everyday, but not today. She had to get her handicap sister to a doctor’s appointment that afternoon and knew she would have to leave early to make it on time, so she had driven herself.

DeeDee and Sandra had known each other for many years due to their daughters being very good friends all through school and they had both worked for the Girl Scout troop that the girls had belonged to. Asleep in her bed in New Orleans that afternoon, DeeDee awoke suddenly and was shocked to see Sandra standing at the end of her hotel room bed. It making no sense, she asked Sandra what she was doing there. Sandra’s response was more shocking than the distracting sight of her in the first place, “DeeDee, I died.” What an awful dream she thought and asked, “What do you mean, you died…”

“I was driving home from work just not too long ago, and I died,” said Sandra. She went on to further explain that it was snowing ever so slightly on her way home from work when a large, white, pick-up truck seemed to lose control in the oncoming lane of the two lane highway she drove everyday. It seemed as though it was going to head into the ditch as it slowly veered to the right, but it didn’t. The white truck, driven by a young man, made a sudden jerk to the left in abrupt compensation and hit Sandra head on. That’s all she remembers, but she knows she’s dead.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Sandra, are you alright?” was DeeDee’s saddened response to the story she had just heard. Sandra replied, “I’m fine, I’m absolutely fine, but what about my kids? What about my kids…” and her voice trailed off as her image disappeared. DeeDee wasn’t sure if she had just had a dream and woke up or if what she just saw and heard was an actual apparition of her friend. But that would be ridiculous. She had to have been dreaming this despairing dream, but when she returned home tomorrow, she would give Sandra a call anyways. What she found out when she did return was that Sandra did indeed die that early December day. She had been hit by a 17 year old boy who, on his way home from school, had fallen asleep at the wheel and woken up just in time to avoid going into the ditch. With the day’s earlier freezing rain and temperature drop, black had formed and he lost control of his vehicle. Sandra had died instantly around 3:45 that afternoon… the same time that DeeDee awoke to her at the foot of her bed over 1,200 miles away. Sandra had come to her without a doubt, and as for her kids that she asked about? They had a hard time, but after 15 years, they’re doing well… I’m one of them.

It had been nearly a year since my Mom came through to me and over that time, it had brought me some comfort and even closure which I had been unable to grasp since her untimely death six years prior. My friend Jerome, who had made this communication possible, had progressed with his gift of clairvoyancy and had begun to help those who used him as a medium to find peace with whatever unfinished business they had left here on Earth. Some of these spirits were even hostile and he was able to lead them beyond. I had also developed something more myself in this period of time because he had opened my eyes to the possibility that there was more to be felt, known, and seen that what my perception had once allowed me to.

I started to take notice of the little things that would normally go unnoticed. My Mom appeared in my dreams all the time, but we never spoke. Jerome assured me that was just her way of letting me know she was there. I still saw morning doves everywhere, the sign that I had asked for on that day I spoke with her. It wasn’t just seeing them like you see any bird that darts away at a human’s presence, they would be close to me, take notice of me, and look directly at me without flying away abruptly. My husband, who had only met my Mom once aside from her funeral, knows that he saw her sitting at the table that I kept flowers on for her. I still kept them there after Jerome told me she sat there and like the flowers. All of this, and I still questioned whether or not the bumps in the night that I heard around my house were just normal noises and I was having a psychosomatic reaction or not, but the thing of it was that it was not just bumps. I had started to hear whispering and giggling quite often and had been seeing movement almost like shadows where shadows could not have been produced. Either way, it never frightened me, I did not find them imposing in anyway… but I wanted to know what it was.

My house had been built in 1910 and was the original farm house in that area. As the land was sold off, this area was now the middle of St. Paul, the capitol of Minnesota. The Amtrak train company was one to purchase some of this land and the track was still in use across the street which led to the metal bridge over Snelling Avenue that was notorious for its creative graffiti. It was a small house, but it was quaint and had some of its original character and natural woodwork. There was only one hallway that led from the kitchen in the back of the house. The brick of the chimney there had been covered and this is where I always saw the shadows. The single bathroom was to the right and it ended at what was my son’s bedroom. The rest of rooms were open one to another and had glass French doors that led to our room on the other end of the tiny house. It was cozy and lacked any eerie feeling at all.

Now, I had mentioned these bumps in the night, but truly, all of my experiences that I could not logically explain were in the very early morning hours, never at night. There had been a number of times where I would be in the bathroom getting ready for my day and I would begin to hear giggling outside the door followed by tiny footsteps. Once, I had even received a knock at the door. Every time this happened, I would assume it was my son, who was 2 years old at the time, coming to say good morning to his Mommy, but every time, I would find him in his room at the end of that hallway sound asleep in bed. I had heard the same giggling at times in our unfinished basement when I would take a load of laundry down to be washed. There is one particular morning that will stay vivid in my memory forever. I awoke to whispering in my ear… I felt the breath of the whisper as it spoke, “It’s time to get up. I know it’s early, but I woke the house up too.” I was tired and groggy, and now a little flabbergasted and confused, but it was indeed time to get up, so I stumbled my way to the kitchen. As I walked through the living room, I began to see tiny white lights about the size of a quarter shining off the hardwood floors. The sun had yet to come over the horizon, so it could not have been a mere reflection from anything, but it was honestly, like the shine off of a paten leather shoe. They moved in a walking pattern and disappeared around that corner where I always see the shadows. I heard the giggling, made some coffee and got on with my day.

I so very much wanted to contact Jerome about all of this, but did not want to impose as he had been bombarded with people wanting and needing his help. So much so, that his friends were trying to get him to charge for his time, but he believed that a gift is a gift to help people, not to make money. I never did call, but little did I know that in a few weeks time, his band would be playing a show in St. Paul and he would be staying at my house. Looks like I would possibly get some questions answered after all…

Urban legend…just the words conjure up pictures of sitting around the campfire at night listening to tales of terror that happened to a friend of a friend in the next town over. Urban legends actually may have some basis in reality, but most are just tales that are designed to frighten and cause goose bumps to run up and down your spine. My top three urban legends of all time are listed below. See if you agree?

3. The Killer in the Backseat

What woman doesn’t check her backseat after growing up on this urban legend, told around campfires since cars were invented, this legend is one of the scariest around. The legend has been changed over the years but carries the same fundamental moral, always check your backseat, and never assume that you are locking the evil out when you lock your doors. It could be inside with you.

2. The Babysitter

Everyone has heard the story of the babysitter who was being terrified by an unknown caller that was later proved to be in the house with her. This is a top urban legend just for the sheer terror of the thought. This urban legend was made into a movie and then remade a few years later, increasing its popularity with every theatrical release. The words “have you checked the children” still send chills down anyone’s spine who hears them.

1. Bloody Mary

The number one urban legend of all time in my opinion would still have to be Bloody Mary. Even as the invention of the Internet and modern technology has given rise to new urban legends, Bloody Mary is still chanted three times in the mirror all over America and beyond. Mary Worth is a name that will go down in urban legend history and make us afraid to look at our own reflections in a mirror for many years to come.